IV
The Gathering of the Vultures
In the outer night rose again the whickering cry, that rose into a shrill yearning whine. Jaeger cocked his bearded head sidewise. “The flying horned one summons his faithful. This is their day, and midnight will be their hour. Shakespeare knew that, and passes the word on to us—‘The time of night when Troy was set on fire.’ ”
I looked at a little old clock of dark wood, set on a bracket. “It is past eleven now. Have you time to tell me what you mean by the witches’ Christmas?”
“Briefly, this: In ancient heathen times a festival of scorn was held, from which grew the Christian Halloween—”
“But this is the middle of November!” I protested.
“Witches are simple folk. They reckon by full moons. We have one tonight, and they’ve crept out of their dens to do what mischief their hearts, and their demon, tells them. Beginning at my house.”
He fixed his eyes on the girl. She had been sitting silent and tense, staring straight before her. “Susan,” he said gently, “they sent you to find your father’s body. Did they send you for any other purpose? If so—”
She rose, and lifted her hands. She spoke, slowly and questioningly, as though reciting an unfamiliar lesson:
“Mirathe saepy Satonich—”
I started and opened my mouth, to tell her where I had heard those words, earlier in the night. But Jaeger signed me to keep silent. Susan was not chanting understandably.
“Stand still, stand still! No more than a tree or a rock can you depart! This by the four elements, the seven unspoken numbers, the innumerable stars in the sky! This by the name of—of—”
Abruptly she sat down, as if utterly weary. “I can’t!” she sobbed. “I can’t say that name!”
Jaeger smiled, beautifully for all his broad shagginess, and stepped across to her side. He laid his hand on her head. “No decent person can, child,” he comforted her softly. “They failed in the plot when they chose you for a tool.”
She looked up, and faint color had come to her cheeks. Her eyes and lips had regained steadiness. She appeared to be wakened and calmed from a nightmare.
“I’ll guess what happened,” he went on. “Those who told you that your father was here, also gave you a message to deliver. They spoke the words for you to repeat, making passes before your eyes—thus, eh?”
Slowly he drew his open hand through the air, as if stroking invisible fur. Susan nodded, and bit her lip.
“Several names for that,” Jaeger commented to me over his shoulder. “Mesmerism, animal magnetism, hypnotism. Most occult dabblers know a little of it, would God they did not! But I had no fear of Susan, even when I saw that she was entranced. In the book of James Braid I read that nobody will do things when hypnotized that he would not do in his right mind; and, whatever her father’s sad delusions, Susan is healthy and good.”
Susan began to weep. “I would never have hurt you, Mr. Jaeger,” she managed to protest.
“Certainly not.” He touched her head again, comfortingly. “That spell was to make us both stand like posts, while the prowlers came in and did what they pleased with us.
“Even had she said it in full, however, it would not work. It already failed on you, Wickett. For myself, I was silently saying the counter-charm, from this book.”
He again produced a volume from his shelf, this time a sort of pamphlet in gray paper. On its cover was the title:
Powwows, or Long Lost Friend
And, underneath, the picture of an owl. Jaeger flipped it open—I saw the page number, 69—and began to patter nimbly:
“Like unto the cup and the wine—may we be guarded in daytime and nightime—that no wild beast may tear us, no weapons wound us, no false tongues injure us—and no witchcraft or enchantment harm us. Amen.”
I took it that such was the counter-spell he mentioned, and thought it odd that a minister should use such a device. But scant time for philosophy was left us. Outside voices began to laugh.
I say voices, not men. To this day I do not know just what sort of throats uttered that merriment. At the time it seemed to me that human beings were trying to sound like beasts, or beasts were trying to sound like human beings. The blending of beast and human was imperfect, and horrid to hear. Jaeger laid down the little book on the table, and again took up his revolver.
“Wickett,” he said softly, “there is a window where you can watch the door. Take your post there. Watch. If they enter—and they probably will—stand still, as if the charm had worked. Because we can trap them so, as they meant to trap us.”
He had no more time to prepare me, for outside there came a new chorus, this time of rhythmic recital:
“I strolled through a red forest, and in the red forest was a red church. In the red church stood a red altar, and upon the red altar lay a red knife.”
A breathless moment of silence. Then a single booming voice, strangely accented, as if it echoed in a deformed mouth:
“Take the red knife and cut red bread!”
Jaeger sniffed. “Their sacrament ritual,” he muttered. “A vile blasphemy. The window, Wickett.”
He jerked his bearded chin toward an alcove by the door, and I moved into it. The window there looked upon the entrance from one side. Beneath the sill hung an old Chicopee saber, such as the Yankees once carried, and such as the Southern cavalry filched from enemy dead or captives. I started to draw it.
“No,” Jaeger warned. “Only stay near, and seize it when they least expect. They will expect Susan to put out the light before they venture any nearer.”
He bent toward the lamp, and blew strongly down its glass chimney. Its flame went out, and we were left in a sort of bluish gloom. I could barely see Jaeger’s thick body stiffen into a statue, and I imitated him, my eyes on the window.
“Move only when I do,” cautioned Jaeger softly.
Outside rose more racket. Those who besieged us were plainly trying to put fire into their own hearts.
“Hola noa massa!” spoke the strange booming voice. And back came a chorus intonation:
“Janna, janna! Hoa, hoa! Sabbat, sabbat! Moloch, Lucifer, Asteroth!”
Those, I fancied, were the names of pagan gods and devils. As the last syllable died away, something came into view beyond the window glass.
With the house dark, the moon made sufficient pale radiance outside. It showed me what was approaching the door.
It was a black low shape, greened here and there as light struck it, like an expanse of old worn broadcloth. My first impression was of a monstrous flood of filthy liquid.
Then I saw that it was indeed a creeping creature, not more in solid bulk than a big man, but with outspread wings like ribbed blankets. It paused at the squared section of log that served for doorstep, and straightened up from its crouch. I could not have looked away for wealth or hope of salvation.
This was the same thing I had earlier seen flapping across the face of the moon. Now it stood upon two flat slabs of feet, like charred shingles. Its legs were long and lean, and seemed to bend backward, cricket fashion. The deep chest thrust forward prowlike the breastbone must have been like a bird’s, a protruding blade from which great muscles branched to employ those wings. For the batlike membranes would measure twenty feet and more from tip to tip, and hung from two long lumpy arms. The thing had hands, or what might resemble hands. From them sprouted the wingribs downward, and the gaunt, sharp fingers outward.
But of face I saw nothing for all the moonlight, only an owlish roundness of skull, and two curved horns that gleamed like polished jet, and narrow green eyes like the eyes of a meat-eating animal.
It started to lift a flat foot to the step, then paused. It bent, and I knew now that it had a mouth, for it blew upon Jaeger’s lock, then whickered. The door opened slowly, as if pushed by invisible hands. The entity turned and moved away.
“Enter,” it boomed to whatever companions lurked behind. “Do as you been commanded, and do it well.”
I froze to immobility in my alcove. A moment later, the horde outside made a concerted rush across the threshold. With them came the ugliest and rottenest of pale lights.